In July, several members of Parliament—including NDP and Green leaders Jagmeet Singh and Elizabeth May—sent a letter to French legislators urging them not to ratify the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). “We agree that trade between our countries and continents is important,” it read. “However, we believe in…
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Canadian elections can be staid affairs. For all the talk of big change, campaigns tend to gravitate toward which party can be trusted to “manage the economy.” Trusted by whom? The coveted “middle class” voter, of course. Those at the higher-income end of that group are more likely to vote…
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Regulation. It’s not something many of us have time to think about. Most people are busy working, keeping the household running smoothly and generally living their lives. When we do think about how things are regulated, it’s usually after something terrible has happened: planes drop out of the sky, killing…
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The USMCA, or CUSMA as it’s known here in Canada, is slowly working its way through the U.S. “fast-track” ratification process. Once the U.S. International Trade Commission tables its required economic impact study, delayed by the month-long U.S. government shutdown, the Trump administration will present Congress with implementing legislation. But…
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This past November, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association’s VP of sustainability tweeted an invitation to the CPIA’s annual Plasticurious video contest in which teens (ages 14-18) compete for the opportunity to win up to $1,000, “educate themselves and their peers about how plastics power their life,” and have fun learning…
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The recent renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement presented a unique opportunity to rethink the dominant model for governing international trade and investment. At the outset of the “New NAFTA” talks in August 2017, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland outlined the government’s priorities under the umbrella of a…
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When Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and Enrique Peña Nieto sign the USMCA, as they (or their designates) are expected to do this weekend at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, they will take another step on the road to replacing NAFTA. But there is still some distance to go, with…
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Earlier this year, the Chamber of Commerce released yet another report on how public protections and other regulatory requirements are undermining Canadian competitiveness—and how the government should go about deregulating to make life easier for businesses big and small. Though it wasn’t directly tied to the Trump administration’s massive gutting…
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Finance Minister Bill Morneau will deliver his fall economic statement this afternoon. As I was writing this, all indications were that the federal government would wisely sidestep a corporate tax cut war with the United States, much to the chagrin of rich investors in Canada. And let’s be honest. Canada’s…
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In the aftermath of the USMCA negotiations, the Trudeau government chalked up two significant “wins” for environmental protection and Canadian sovereignty: the elimination of investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), at least in the Canada-U.S. context, and the disappearance of NAFTA’s so-called proportionality clause in the energy chapter. The latter is…
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